Fair Trade at Midnight
by Miss Scarlet
Summary: Fred Luo thinks, and complains to the only person who'll listen - himself - about his life, about Gene, and about the business and the ever-present threat of marriage.


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Fair Trade at Midnight

Miss Scarlet

It's not easy, you know, loving someone who would never even contemplate loving you back. Unrequited love is all well and good for some people, I'm sure; I bet they really enjoy cutting romantic poses on weather-beaten hilltops and making sorrowful eyes at the moon or what-have-you. I can't do that. I don't know if I want to. I don't think so. Can't take the time out from the business to go wandering about on moors in storms and suchlike, waiting for the object of my desire to turn up out of the blue and confess that he really does love me, and he's sorry, and he wants to take me away to some peaceful haven and fuck me senseless.

Hmph. How _romantic_.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love that. I'd be speechless with happiness if I knew he'd ever once thought about me that way, wondered what it would be like to kiss me, to not always flinch away from my touch, my embrace. But he's terrified of me, and if I don't stop then he's going to start hating me, and I'll lose him completely.

I know he'll never love me. I'll be lucky if he'll even consider me a friend. At the moment I'm just the unpleasant but necessary phone call between him and more money. Ah, but that's enough, sometimes. Just to hear his voice, to know that he is thinking of me that very moment. To wonder what he's wearing, where he's sitting, what he's looking at whilst he talks to me and pleads with me for money. I hate myself for it, but it's true.

I'm pathetic. I'm so hopelessly in love with him and every time I see him I just want to kiss him until it hurts, to be able to touch him, run my fingers over the scars on his cheek, to hold his hand in public. I want to eat a meal with him, to smile at him without seeing that warning look flash into his eyes. I want him to see beyond what he thinks I am and see what the hell I actually _am_.

Sure, he fought Reiko for me. I tell a lie – he fought Reiko for Melfina. I don't hate the girl, I suppose, I just envy her. He fought Reiko for the money to go and help his precious Melfina, and the fact he'd had to involve me in the whole affair was just an unfortunate downside. He would put up with anything, even me, to help her. Which is nice, in a cruel, heart-breaking, unbearably horrible kind of way. Nice.

Did I mention that he lost to Reiko? Oh, he tried – he got dressed up in drag and then got his ass well and truly kicked. Not even the promise of helping Melfina could get him through that one. She's good, isn't she? Reiko, I mean. I told her to become strong and now she's practically invincible. I suppose I should feel proud of her. Look, everyone, I've created a fucking monster because I'm too much of a coward to tell her I'm gay. I suppose I will have to marry her, sooner or later. Because the Luo family needs an heir, doesn't it? I can't let my family down. Even if it means I have to be miserable for the rest of my life – really, how different can it be from the way I feel now?

So marrying Reiko is more or less a certainty. It's just a matter of how long I can put it off for. How long I can drag out her pain before I allow mine to overwhelm me. Melodramatic, you think? Hardly. If anything, I think I'm handling this whole situation rather well. Calmly. Do I let his rejections destroy me? No. I got back to work, sit at the desk, interview some people, sell some weapons. It's all I know how to do, it's a defence mechanism. Give everything a monetary value, everything becomes quantitative and can be bought and sold. I'm selling my life, and my soul, and my future, and any chance at happiness I might ever have. And I'm buying… well, respect for the family. A wife to adore me, an end to the rumours, a little more stability in the business, maybe expansion.

A fair trade? I don't know. Yes. No. Possibly. 

But in comparison to everyone else in my family I am nothing, merely a link in a chain and if I snap, if I give in even for an instant, it'll make everything they've worked for become worthless. There's no way in hell I'd do that. So yeah, I'm gonna make the trade. In a few years. About seven, by my reckoning. It's a countdown. A time-bomb, ticking away the seconds until my life is over, and I can't even go out and, oh, I don't know, enjoy myself, indulge myself, because I'm still desperately, stupidly, completely in love with _him_!

So I do my best to forget about Reiko, forget about my time limit, just lose myself in my work, bury myself entirely in plans and meetings and presentations and expansion strategies and if there's one thing I know for sure it's that I will make this business _work_. I'll make it sweat, I'll make it _run_. It's only fair, given what the business is taking from me in return.

When he visits it's like a breath of fresh air. Of course he only comes for business, of course he doesn't stay longer than he has to, of course he doesn't trust me and I'm fairly sure that his entire crew despises me – but what the hell, who cares, live life on the edge. Oh, that's me all right. So crazy. Crazy in that I'd give up my happiness for the business, crazy in that I'd even contemplate giving up the business for my happiness. 

Oh, happiness is overrated. Happiness is a purely romantic notion, and you already know how I feel about _that_. I want to ring him again, but I daren't. I spoke to him yesterday, it'd be pushing it now, I've no excuse, no real reason and without that he'll just tell me he's too busy and hang up. He can be a cruel, cruel person sometimes but I can't blame him, he doesn't know what it does to me, he doesn't know how I feel, he has no obligation to pay any attention to me. In fact, I'm surprised he hasn't punched me in the face and denied all knowledge of my existence yet. I'm so lucky he ever comes near me, ever looks my way. So lucky.

I should do some more work, I've got some forms to finish for tomorrow, but I can't be bothered. They'll still be there, and the cold morning light will be much more conductive to hard, honest work. Working at night is just so depressing, don't you think?

So I'll just spend the evening alone, staring out of my window at the patchwork quilt of streetlights and cars and offices, maybe I'll get a drink, maybe I'll go onto the balcony, stare at the sky, the stars, the moon.

Ah, but it seemsthat I'm quite the romantic, after all.


End file.
